LITTLE OLD LADY WITH THE RED PURSE
Grammar Lesson #6: Active vs Passive Voices
Awhile back, I had one of my wonderful subscribers tell me The Old Lady With The Red Purse was leading you astray when she told you how to use apostrophes. She was definitely right if you use the APA, MLA or the Chicago Style books. You see, there are different guidelines for academic papers and such. Newspapers even have their own AP Style for formatting.
Since The Little Old Lady With The Red Purse taught school for nearly 40 years using Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition, she uses that as her guide in her reviews of old -fashion grammar. Stephen King in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft suggests picking up an old copy of Warriner’s textbook. Just so you know — he’s weird too. Ha!
You know verbs come in TWO voices — ACTIVE and PASSIVE.
In Active Voice the Subject does the verb. Passive Voice is when the action is performed upon the subject.
Example of Active Voice: Jerry won the game by hitting a home run.
Example of Passive Voice: The game was won when a homer was hit by Jerry.
Although it is a matter of personal taste which you use, generally, a passive verb is weaker in its effect than an active verb.
Here’s how The Little Old Lady With The Red Purse feels about it.
Ok, you can see The Old Lady wants you to use the Passive Voice sparingly. There are only two situations where she thinks it’s acceptable:
You can use it when you don’t know who did the action.
Example: The door had been closed before we arrived.
You can use it when you don’t want to disclose the actor.
Example: A mistake has been made in issuing that order.
It’s your choice.
It’ll Be OK.
~~~
“I’m on the INFORMATION SUPERHIGWAY, but I’m in the slow lane and my blinker is on.” ~ Maxine
Haha, I struggled with active and passive voice EVERY SINGLE WEEK for over a year. I used Grammarly for spell check and punctuation. It always gave the passive voice prompt. I drove me insane. One day I sat down and wrote out 30 or 40 sentences to understand the difference between the two. It finally made sense. Here's the thing. Passive voice is the default in my head, or maybe from my head to the keyboard, who knows? Haha, it is an ongoing struggle, but now I catch myself.
Loved it! Been sharing your grammar lessons with our homeschool group! FYI we've used Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition in our homeschool curriculum, unfortunately my boys weren't fans and we switched to something a little less strenuous.